We expected Turkey to be quite
different from where we have been so far, and it is. Many of the
differences are good, some not quite so good. But it is an interesting
place with friendly interesting people and some of the best food in the world!
We will likely linger here for a while.

History

The history of Turkey is as old as the
history of humankind, and this history has been characterized by the rise and
fall of many civilizations. Although even an abbreviated history of Turkey is
well beyond the scope of this website, we will make some attempt to outline the
main civilizations that have populated this land through the centuries.

The land that comprises Turkey today
spans two continents – Asia and Europe. The vast majority is in Asia. This
land is part of the area previously called Asia Minor and later Anatolia. The
European land is often called Thrace.

Pre-History

Anatolia was inhabited by nomadic
hunter-gatherers since around 20,000 BC in the Peleolithic era. Man’s earliest
permanent settlement is believed to have been in Anatolia around 10,000 BC.

Catalhoyuk, in Anatolia, developed
around 6500 BC, and it was possibly the world’s first town. During the Bronze
Age, Troy, Ephesus, and Smyrna became important cities from 4000 to 3000 BC.

Empires

Then a series of empires ruled these
lands from around 2000 BC until the 20th century AD. The main
empires were the Hatti, Hittite, Persian, Lydian, Greek, Roman, Byzantine, and
Ottoman.

The Hatti was the first empire in
Anatolia. They established their rule around 2000 BC, but they were only a
brief rule. They were quickly replaced by the Hittites.

The Hittites were of uncertain
Indo-European origin. They developed an immense kingdom, and they were the
first powerful empire in Anatolia. They ruled for a relatively peaceful 800
years – until the early 12th century BC when they were attacked by
the Assyrians.

Various indigenous and foreign forces
established kingdoms over the next 600 years. The Urartians were in the east,
the Phrygians then Cimmerians in the west, the Lycians in the southwest, and the
Greeks along the Mediterranean coast.

In 546 BC, Cyrus of Persia overran
Anatolia. This was the onset of a long Greco-Roman rivalry.

In 334 BC, Alexander the Great defeated
the Persians and conquered Anatolia for Greece. Greek influence started
spreading throughout the kingdom.

Roman rule first emerged in 133 BC when
the dying king, Attalus III, left his state to Rome. The Romans established a
capital at Ephesus, and their empire spread quickly. Saint Paul began
proselytizing Christianity as he trekked across Anatolia, and Christianity was
widely adopted.

In 330 AD, Constantine, the ruler of the
Roman Empire, declared a new capital of his eastern Roman Empire. He named it
“New Rome” – the city that later became Constantinople and later Istanbul. His
empire was declared Christian. But the empire split from within before the end
of the century, and that split became a separation between Catholicism and Greek
Orthodoxy.

The Byzantines assumed power of the
eastern Roman Empire. They were Greek speaking Christians with a Greek, rather
than Latin, influence. The Byzantine Empire reached its peak under Emperor
Justinian in the 6th century AD. The empire greatly expanded their
territory. They built magnificent palaces, churches, and public buildings that
still stand. But they were economically overextended and without competent
leadership. Then they were further weakened by plague and invasions.

The decline of the Byzantine Empire
began in the 11th century with an invasion by the Seljuk Turks – a
group of central Asian nomads – and a defeat at the Battle of Manzikert.
Further decline resulted from the Fourth Crusade in the early 13th
century when the empire fractured in to Greek and Latin states. The empire
struggled to recover for another 200 years as civil wars repeatedly erupted, and
the weakened empire fell to the Ottomans in the 15th century.
Constantinople fell on May 29, 1453.

Mehmet II regained control of
Constantinople and renamed it Istanbul. The Ottomans were efficient
administrators, and they became a powerful military force for a while. The
Ottomans were Muslims, but they embraced all cultures and religions of Anatolia
– Greek, Turkish, Islamic, Christian.

The ‘golden age’ of the Ottoman Empire
was under Sultan Suleyman the Magnificent who ruled from 1520 to 1566. During
his reign, the empire experienced substantial expansion and development. But
after Suleyman’s death, the empire failed to keep up with developments in the
west – social, military, scientific – and it began to decline. Then nationalism
crept in from Europe, and five independent regions – Greece, Romania,
Montenegro, Serbia, Bosnia - broke free from the empire. The empire began to
implement changes by creating a constitution and parliament and modernizing
their military, but it was too little too late. The decline was unstoppable.

20th century

The decline of the Ottoman Empire was
hastened by some very bad decisions made in the early 20th century –
the Armenian genocide and choosing the wrong side in World War I among others.
The failing empire’s only noteworthy success in World War I was at Gallipoli in
a battle led by Mustafa Kemal.

The empire was forced to accept the
humiliating Treaty of Sevres in 1920 which reduced the empire’s land holdings by
more than half and allowed numerous foreign powers to occupy parts of the
empire. Many of that treaty’s humiliations, including the foreign occupations,
were reversed by the subsequent Treaty of Lausanne in 1923 which established the
boundaries of the modern Turkish state. The Treaty of Lausanne also ended the
Ottoman Empire and compelled the “population exchange” between Greece and
Turkey. The population exchange compelled 1.5 million Greek Orthodox Turks to
leave Turkey and relocate to Greece, and it compelled 450,000 Muslim Greeks to
leave Greece and relocate to Turkey. Entire communities were destroyed based
solely on religion.

Independence

Mustafa Kemal – the military leader at
Gallipoli – became the first president and established the capital at Ankara.
He established institutions of democracy, instituted universal suffrage, and
adopted the Roman alphabet and standardized the Turkish language. He also
encouraged national unity based solely on Turkish heritage, and that excluded
the Kurds whom had had been an integral part of Turkish history to date. The
problems between Turks and Kurds still persist. Mustafa Kemal came to be known
as Ataturk, which literally means “Father Turk”. He died in 1938, and he is
still held in high esteem among all but the Kurds.

Turkey was cautious to avoid involvement
in World War II, but after the war they became an ally of the US and a NATO
member. Their military position has been pro-Western and secular. Many
political parties emerged in the 1960s and 1970s, and political and economic
chaos erupted. Their military has seized power in recent years – 1960, 1971,
and 1980 – when it perceived that the country was straying from Ataturk’s
vision.

Turkey was an ally of the US at the
onset of the Gulf War in the 1990s. Many Iraqi Kurds fled north in to southeast
Turkey, and their plight focused international attention on the Kurdish issue in
Turkey. The Turkish Kurds were somewhat emboldened by this attention, and they
formed the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). The clashes between the PKK and
Turkey’s ruling party have been described as a civil war by some.

21st Century

Turkey struggled in to the 21st
century with a massive earthquake in 1999 and an economic collapse in 2001.
In 2002 the pro-Islamic Justice and Development Party (AKP) was elected, and
they have provided some stability for the past decade. Turkey is now seeking
membership in the European Union. There are still ongoing struggles between the
‘secularists’ and ‘Islamists’, but the issue likely to prevent their EU
membership is their treatment of the Kurdish population. But Turkey has reached
a comfortable stability for all but the Kurds.

Turkey Today

Geography

Turkey spans two continents – southwest
Asia and southeast Europe. It is comprised of 303,224 square miles with only 3%
in Europe and 97% in Asia. The Asian and European areas are divided by the
Dardanelles, Sea of Marmara, and Bosphorus.

Turkey lies on three converging
continental plates, and 80% of the country is an extremely active tectonic
zone. Earthquakes are frequent.

The geography of Turkey is highly
diverse. It has thousands of miles of coastline, mountains, rolling steppe,
lakes, and rivers.

Government

Turkey is a multiparty republic. They
have both a president and prime minister. The capital of the government is in
Ankara – not Istanbul as many believe.

Economy

Turkey’s economy is agricultural based.
Only one-third of the population is economically active, and the gross national
income is less than $10,000 US dollars.

The country’s economy has been volatile
for a few decades. Their inflation rate exceeded 77% in the 1990s, and it
exceeded 100% by 2001. That was followed by an economic collapse, and the value
of the Turkish lira plummeted. They made substantial reforms and received IMF
loans, and their inflation rate was back to single digits by 2004. The economy
appeared to recover adequately by 2005 that the new Turkish lira was introduced
as the new national currency. The new Turkish lira was stable for more than a
year, and then it lost 18% of its value. However, Turkey survived the financial
crises of 2008 better than many European economies, so many believe them to be
returning to a more stable position.

The currency in Turkey is the new
Turkish lira (TL). Its current value is approximately $0.60 USD.

Population

The population of Turkey is around 72
million with more than 70% living in cities. The three largest cities in Turkey
are Istanbul with a population of 11 million, Ankara with a population of 4
million, and Izmir with a population of less than 3 million.

The ethnic blend of the Turkish
population is 65% Turk, 19% Kurd, 7% Crimean Tartar, 2% Arab, and 7% other. The
Kurds are the largest minority at nearly 14 million. Half of those live in the
sparsely populated east and southeast areas of the country. Virtually all of
the Turkish Kurds are Sunni Muslims, and they have a distinct culture and
language.

The official language of the country is
Turkish. There is no official religion; however, 97.5% are Muslim. That 97.5%
is comprised of 82.5% Sunni and 15% Shiite.

Although Turkey has a literacy rate of
88%, more than 60% have eight years or less education. Twenty eight percent
have a secondary education, and 11% have a university education.

Our time in Turkey

Turkey is a large country, and it also
has a large coastline. We plan to travel along much of the coastline by
sea, but we will also travel inland to see more. We will describe Turkey
by land as a 'destination', and our sailing - Turkey by sea - will be described
under 'passage notes and pictures'.